Not Alone
by Aiffe
Summary: Tahno and Korra face each other once more in the ring, but this time Tahno doesn't want to fight.


Written for Tahorra Week 2015, prompt was "Teamwork."

* * *

Tahno dragged his feet into the chain-link cage, and lifted his heavy head to see who today's victim was. The sight sent him reeling. He took a step back, only to find the gate already shut behind him.

What he was seeing couldn't be what was actually there. But what he saw was the Avatar herself, hair shorn above her shoulders and falling in her eyes, muscles tensed, fists ready. At first he thought she didn't know who he was at all, but then he saw a slight sneer of recognition.

Tahno put his hands up. "Maybe we should call off the fight. I'm hallucinating again."

"You too?" Avatar Korra said, flippantly.

"How can you be hallucinating me if I'm hallucinating you?"

"Why would I hallucinate _you_? Shut up and fight," Korra said.

Tahno kept his hands up, palms out. "Wait. Korra."

Korra gave a yell of frustration, and he realized too late she hadn't wanted to be recognized, and he'd made a mistake by saying her name here. Her fist struck him, and he stumbled gracelessly. "I don't want to fight you," he blurted out. It had been a long time since there was someone he didn't want to fight.

But the Avatar showed no such restraint. "Hit me or forfeit!" she said, lashing out at him again. Her blows landed, and he let them, stunned at the sight of her like this. Not that he was a prettier picture at the moment, but somehow she'd always been above all this, in his mind, in his dreams where sometimes he saw her moving in the stands, aloof and untouchable. He felt his knees buckle and the ground slam into him, and surely this would be considered a win for her in a moment, except that she also fell backwards, as if struck by some outside force.

Korra's eyes were fixed on something above both of them, that would have been floating just under the harsh electric lighting. She gagged on nothing, struggling to breathe, and her brow glittered with sweat. Her legs kicked at the concrete as if looking for purchase, and she let loose a plume of fire that struck nothing. They were both down—the count started. Tahno wondered if he shouldn't get up, and win by default—his second unfair victory over her. He could use the purse, at least. He'd like to have said it was a sense of honor that kept him down, but in actuality, she'd done more damage than he'd realized in her onslaught, and he found getting up was easier said than done. Still lying there dazed and in pain, he heard the count end.

Somehow, seemingly impossibly, they'd both lost.

* * *

Tahno leaned on the bathroom door. He'd heard the mirror shatter. He paused to take a sip from a metal flask, dulling the pain Korra had left in all her fist-marks and fingerprints. "Open up. I gotta go." He didn't actually, he'd already pissed in the alley outside, but maybe he was just drunk enough for something like that to be funny.

"Tahno, this is _not_ the place or the time to bother me."

"I'm not bothering you."

Through the door, he heard a small, infuriated sound. "That's the very _definition_ of bothering me."

Casually, Tahno kicked open the door. The shock of impact ran up his leg, snagging on every injury on the way to the top of his head. He registered the pain placidly, as he'd greet an old friend. Better than he'd greet an old friend, all things considered. "Now I might be bothering you."

Korra wheeled on him, and he thought she might hit him again, and didn't much care. "Tahno, you _idiot_. What if…what if I'd been taking a shit?"

He shrugged. "You weren't."

"You didn't know that."

"I heard you break the mirror. If that's something you do when you take a shit, you must get really constipated."

She flushed, with rage or embarrassment he wasn't sure. "It's none of your business."

Tahno just cocked his head to the side and leaned against the doorframe, his shadow from the lights outside cast over her. Korra glared at him, then ran the tap. She had injuries from previous fights that night, just as he still carried some nasty bruises from the nights before. She bent the water to her injuries, and started healing them, and Tahno wondered if she was ignoring him or if this was deliberately to torture him.

"You never gave me my bending back," he said softly.

"You never asked," Korra grunted back, terse.

"You never asked why I never asked."

She spared a glance up at him, entirely devoid of patience. "But I guess you're going to tell me."

Tahno's mouth tightened. "Not with that attitude."

Korra threw the water down, done with it. "You're out of luck anyway."

The words struck him as hard as if she'd pierced him with a shard of ice. "You wouldn't restore me?"

She gave him the first real hard, appraising look since they'd faced each other in the fighting pit. Seeing her close up like this, he didn't think she hated him. There was a lot going on inside her, maybe she didn't have room to hate him. "Look…." she said. "You missed your chance. I can't do it now. I'm a shit Avatar, don't you listen to the newsreels?"

"Not really. But didn't you save the world last I heard?"

"You must have stopped listening a while ago."

He shrugged, painfully.

"I can't say I expected you to end up like this either," Korra said.

"What did you expect, me to take up trombone?" Tahno scoffed. "After something like that…."

"Well, you waited too long, and you're not even first on the list of people I'd help if I could. So…sorry. Deal with it." When he still showed no sign of moving, she shoved past him, and Tahno tried to resist her unsuccessfully, and grunted in pain.

"I'm the second, though, aren't I…" Tahno said, from his spot crumpled up where Korra had pushed him. "Maybe…a really distant second."

"You don't know anything."

"I know who the first is. The one you can't help, but want to." She met his eyes and held them a long moment, and he knew he didn't have to say it.

Korra hauled him up, not terribly gentle but not malicious either. At his full height, even bent over and hunched he loomed over her. She directed him back towards the bathroom sink, and ran the tap again to heal him. Tahno surrendered to this, biting down the moan that wanted to escape at the feel of the water stirring his chi, the flesh mending, her warm hands. She hadn't even closed the door, but he was past caring if someone saw.

"Korra," he rasped, his throat rougher than it'd been a minute ago.

"I gotta make this quick," she said. He didn't really mind her rushing, it made her more forceful, made it almost hurt, made him feel _something_.

"The mirror…."

"I spent all my money just getting in the match. So I can't pay for it."

"I'll say I did it."

"Can you afford it?"

"Kind of you to worry," Tahno said, more icily than he'd intended. It depended on one's definition of the word 'afford.' He'd be no worse off, at any rate.

"It's not just the mirror," she said.

"Don't tell me you're embarrassed about that little display. Breaking the rules in a no-bending match, tut tut."

"I was in the bending matches before," she said. "As an earthbender."

"They'll be on to your secret identity, then."

"Yeah," Korra said, finishing abruptly. Tahno slumped down, loose and unprepared for her to release him. She walked out, and he followed. But…she didn't tell him not to follow.

She walked on stubbornly, the stiff set of her shoulders showing she knew he was there, but not even dignifying him with a "fuck off." But then maybe he wasn't even the biggest thing on her mind. She looked over her shoulder sometimes, her eyes seeing him but not looking for him. He could see something had put her through hell, but still, this was awfully cold of her. He couldn't resent it—following her was awfully _creepy_ of him, and it might be better to be cold than to be creepy. Absent-minded and probably not entirely sober, he started to sing a little, some pop song from the radio, _I left my heart on the ice for her to find…._

He was wobbling a bit, losing her in a throng of people hanging out in the alley behind a bar, making dubiously legal bets. He scanned their faces, but there was no one who had it out for him.

 _But even when it froze she was always on my mind…._

Suddenly, Korra stopped. "You again! I'm sick of you following me, let's finish this!"

Tahno put his hand to his chest in a weak gesture of innocence, but when a plume of fire shot into the air, poorly-aimed even for a warning shot, he realized it might not have been him she meant.

He found her on the ground, struggling against some invisible force, a semi-circle of concerned people around her. He broke through them and went to her side.

"Is she all right?" someone asked.

"I…I don't know," Tahno said truthfully, even as Korra feebly tried to say, "I'm fine."

"I'll take her home," he said, and Korra actually seemed grateful for it when he helped her out of the crowd of busybodies and into a quiet alley.

"I can't help you," Korra finally said, with a bitter rage that wasn't directed at him. "Not won't…can't."

"It's all right," Tahno said, even though it wasn't really. It would have to be, for now. "I can help _you_."

* * *

Tahno woke on the floor of his room, which happened more than he'd be proud to admit. There was also considerably less accessible floor space than was ideal, but he liked to think he'd moved past shame and pride by now. When you can't have one, the other seems pointless after a while.

Korra was hunched over a steaming teapot, having worked his small stove in the close quarters. She must have found one of the few intact-if-chipped cups, and washed it. The bed was relatively clean, sheets freshly rumpled and empty. The rest of his room looked like a war-torn battlefield, which, he supposed, it was. But it seemed to be where both of them belonged.

"Morning, sunshine," Korra said.

"It's raining." He'd known that, even asleep. He could hear it pinging on the cheap new metal roof, pouring out the gutters, splashed through the busy streets by Satomobiles in a sound that was regular as ocean waves but full of growls and moans and strange mechanical sighs, and he could feel it, so thick and close in the air coming in the small open window it seemed hardly different from the steam rising from the teapot. And he could feel it, deeper, where some part of him ached with absence.

"Yeah," Korra said. "Thanks for letting me stay the night here."

"It's good of you not to point out that most people would pay money not to stay at Hotel Tahno," he said.

"Better than out in the elements," she said.

"Korra…you're the Avatar." He saw her tense. "Aren't there people bending over backwards to give you better places to stay than this?"

"None of that was really mine!" she snapped back, almost shouting, then softer: "I…don't really deserve it."

Tahno groped for a cigarette and lighter, and took a puff before answering. If Korra minded, she didn't show it. "You can't think like that," he said finally.

"Why not, it's true."

"It's irrelevant. Lots of things happened to you that you didn't really deserve—good _and_ bad. And they don't balance each other. It's not just to you, either. Look out the window—is this a just and righteous world?"

Korra did look. "It's just…fine, whatever," she said, groping for words. "I know life isn't fair for anyone. I know it hasn't been for you. But out of all the people who've been born the Avatar, I'm the only one who keeps failing at it in the most basic way. The whole world is counting on me."

"Fuck the world."

" _I'm_ counting on me, and I'm failing myself!" Korra said angrily. "It's all I've ever wanted to do my whole life, just be the Avatar. I don't _want_ to be anything else." She choked at tears that didn't quite fall, gripping the cracked cup tightly. "And it's the only thing I'm fit to do. What else am I going to do with my life after training to be the Avatar? I can't be anyone else. If I'm not the Avatar, I'm no one." She paused for a moment. "And everyone who wants to help me…they know that. They think if they're supportive towards me long and hard enough, they'll get the Avatar back. Except they keep telling me things that don't even make sense, like oh, just be grateful, just think about how Aang had it harder than you, just…I don't know. Whatever's wrong with me I can't snap out of it and the longer I can't…."

Tahno put out the stump of his cigarette, and waited to see if she'd go on.

"….Even you," she said, finally.

"You don't know anything about me," he said darkly.

"You want me to restore you."

"Yeah."

"Well, I can't. I can't connect with the Avatar spirit, and I'm a completely useless bender of four elements who isn't the Avatar. I keep hallucinating a version of myself from when I fought Zaheer, she wraps chains around me and asphyxiates me and I can't fight her and I can't heal you."

"I figured it was something like that," he said.

"And you look like death warmed over, you're gonna say I'm just whining since you've clearly been having a rough time…." she shook her head. "Why _didn't_ you ask for your bending back when I first put out the announcement?"

"Well," Tahno said. "It's kind of a funny story."

"Funny…."

"Sure. So, yours truly, pro-bending champion, had long-term plans. Dreams! Goals!"

"I remember the cheating."

"Baby, you don't know the _half_ of it. Don't blame me, anyway, all the pro-bending games are rigged. What, you thought it wasn't fixed? Anyway, I had a real gift, and it wasn't just in the ring. Those winnings weren't just for impressing the ladies—or the gents. I had tuition to pay."

"Tuition?"

"Yeah, that's when you pay someone to teach you, because you're not the Avatar."

"I know what tuition is," she said. "What were you studying?"

He made a motion he thought she might recognize, one waterbender to another. "Healing. This isn't the Northern Water Tribe, men can be healers too. Anyway, there's a lot of good money in it. And I wasn't going to be young forever…besides, pro-bending's a chump's game. The Triads make you pay for everything in the end."

"You're a healer…"

"Past tense. Anyway, that's why I got into pro-bending. Not that it wasn't fun and all, but...it was a way to make money quick. But I guess that was my undoing, too."

Korra waited a moment for him to go on, and when he didn't, "That doesn't explain why you didn't come to me."

"Well, I was in with the Triple Threats. I mean…you _had_ to be. Maybe you didn't know about it, but your teammates were too."

"I sort of knew," Korra said.

"Yeah. So…you told them you wouldn't restore their bending because they were bad people. And Shady Shin's the jealous type. So he tells me, if I get my bending back, I can have fun being the first waterbender with no arms."

"Actually…you wouldn't be the first…."

"This is a detail that sort of misses the point," Tahno said.

"So…you were scared of them?"

"Of course I was! I mean…I thought about trying to talk to you about it, ask for protection…but why would you, anyway…I'd have been admitting I was in with them and used them to cheat, which is completely true."

"You just wanted to be a healer," Korra said. "I don't know, that makes you seem…not so bad."

Tahno scowled. "Don't look at me like…like I could be your pet project. I'm _exactly_ as bad as you think I am. Maybe even worse."

"So…you deserve it," she said, questioningly.

He sighed. "Whatever."

* * *

"Where are you going?" Tahno asked. He'd known it couldn't last, as nice a break as it had been.

"I don't really know," Korra said. "But I think if you want to find something, you need to search somewhere."

"Seems reasonable." He found shoes that didn't have too many holes in them, and threw on his jacket.

"Where are _you_ going?" Korra asked.

"I want to come with you, Korra."

Korra sighed. "I still can't restore you."

"Yeah…I know that."

"It's not going to be like, I find something and have some epiphany and everything just works out and I give you your bending back."

"I know."

"I mean, I'm probably just going to wander around some deserts punching my own hallucinations."

"Sounds fun."

"I need to do it _alone_ , Tahno."

"You've been alone your whole life. What good has it done you."

Korra seemed taken off-balance by that. "That's…that's not true."

"Let's go walk in that desert and think about it, and you tell me in a while whether it's true or not."

"If it's just about your bending, I promise, I'll come back here if I ever get the ability to give it back. And I'll _deal_ with Shady Shin or whoever else."

"Don't worry about that right now." He wiped his hand off on his pants self-consciously, and held it out to her. "Come on."

His heart skipped a beat when she took it. He hadn't thought he had it in him.

They went outside, taking very little with them, into an early morning misty rain, the wet streets and pools of water reflecting the brightening sky.

She wasn't a proper Avatar, but somehow, she gave him hope. He wasn't a proper healer, but maybe, he thought, he could still do a little. In spite of everything, he thought they might make a good team.


End file.
